SS Outline 9.6.2026
MEMBERS OF ONE ANOTHER | WEEK 2 OF 12
Entering the Body: Reception
Big idea: A member is a limb joined to a living body. Reception is the church’s deliberate act of recognizing Christ’s gift of a person and accepting responsibility for that person by name.
1. When Did It Begin?
How a church relation begins reveals what we believe the relation is.
2. What a Member Is — 1 Corinthians 12:12–27
Paul’s word for “member” is melos: a limb or organ of a living body — a foot, a hand, an ear, an eye.
A brick is part of a wall; remove it and the brick sits in the yard unchanged.
A hand is a member of a body; it lives only while joined, and its removal wounds the body.
Four features of a member in the text:
•Joined — baptized by one Spirit into one body; God places the members (vv. 13, 18).
•Differentiated — many members, unequal functions; sameness would destroy the body (vv. 14–20).
•Mutually dependent — “I have no need of you” is the one thing a member cannot say (vv. 21–22).
•Co-suffering and co-honored — one suffers, all suffer; one is honored, all rejoice (v. 26).
Verse 27 is addressed to a particular congregation. A limb is always a limb of some body. Can a hand be a hand in general, attached to no body in particular?
3. How One Is Joined — Acts 2:38–41, 47; 2 Corinthians 8:5
Addition is a counting word: the Lord added, and the church could count who had been added.
Reception recognizes a double gift — to Christ, then to his people (LBCF 26.6).
4. What Scripture Shows
•Testing and reception: Jerusalem weighed Saul’s credibility, and Barnabas’s testimony resolved it (Acts 9:26–28).
•Baptism and profession as entry markers: disciples made, baptized, taught (Matthew 28:19–20; Acts 2:38–41).
•Confession: visible saints who willingly consent to walk together, under the church’s government (LBCF 26.2, 6, 12).
Reception does not create salvation; it declares the church’s judgment about a visible relation and starts the clock on defined care.
5. A Faithful Reception, in Sequence
Profess plainly → learn the relation → be examined charitably → be baptized → consent mutually → be received publicly → begin immediately.
1. Can I name the day this congregation accepted responsibility for me, and the day I accepted responsibility for it?
2. Am I taking the body’s benefits while withholding the second gift of 2 Corinthians 8:5?
This week: Read 1 Corinthians 12:12–27 and mark every time “member” is mentioned.
Entering the Body: Reception
Big idea: A member is a limb joined to a living body. Reception is the church’s deliberate act of recognizing Christ’s gift of a person and accepting responsibility for that person by name.
1. When Did It Begin?
How a church relation begins reveals what we believe the relation is.
2. What a Member Is — 1 Corinthians 12:12–27
Paul’s word for “member” is melos: a limb or organ of a living body — a foot, a hand, an ear, an eye.
A brick is part of a wall; remove it and the brick sits in the yard unchanged.
A hand is a member of a body; it lives only while joined, and its removal wounds the body.
Four features of a member in the text:
•Joined — baptized by one Spirit into one body; God places the members (vv. 13, 18).
•Differentiated — many members, unequal functions; sameness would destroy the body (vv. 14–20).
•Mutually dependent — “I have no need of you” is the one thing a member cannot say (vv. 21–22).
•Co-suffering and co-honored — one suffers, all suffer; one is honored, all rejoice (v. 26).
Verse 27 is addressed to a particular congregation. A limb is always a limb of some body. Can a hand be a hand in general, attached to no body in particular?
3. How One Is Joined — Acts 2:38–41, 47; 2 Corinthians 8:5
Addition is a counting word: the Lord added, and the church could count who had been added.
Reception recognizes a double gift — to Christ, then to his people (LBCF 26.6).
4. What Scripture Shows
•Testing and reception: Jerusalem weighed Saul’s credibility, and Barnabas’s testimony resolved it (Acts 9:26–28).
•Baptism and profession as entry markers: disciples made, baptized, taught (Matthew 28:19–20; Acts 2:38–41).
•Confession: visible saints who willingly consent to walk together, under the church’s government (LBCF 26.2, 6, 12).
Reception does not create salvation; it declares the church’s judgment about a visible relation and starts the clock on defined care.
5. A Faithful Reception, in Sequence
Profess plainly → learn the relation → be examined charitably → be baptized → consent mutually → be received publicly → begin immediately.
1. Can I name the day this congregation accepted responsibility for me, and the day I accepted responsibility for it?
2. Am I taking the body’s benefits while withholding the second gift of 2 Corinthians 8:5?
This week: Read 1 Corinthians 12:12–27 and mark every time “member” is mentioned.
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